Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Valentine's Day

The kids were nuts today at school. They were very hyper and excited in anticipation of our celebration in class today. I had planned to do lots of fun little Valentine's day activities throughout the day with the kids. When I saw how crazy they were though I scrapped all of those plans and put them to work. I figured that the only way to calm them down was to make them focus and get busy.

The day started off great with a Valentine present from one of my students to her classmates. She brought each classmate a special Valentine's Day pencil. She said that candy is bad for your teeth so she brought pencils instead. THANK GOODNESS!. Pencils are hard to come by at my school. What a wonderful idea!

After journal writing, spelling and daily warm up skills we moved right into a President's Day activity. The kids read about both Lincoln and Washington and did some comprehension activities. I was amazed at how much they retained. I bet that they could give a few sixth graders a run for their money in Presidential trivia!

Our next activity was a very time consuming one. We have studied ants in both Language Arts and E.L.D. classes. Today's project was to make a replica of an ant colony. The hardest thing for my kids was using scissors. We rarely use scissors anymore since art has almost been cut from schools. I had to teach several kids how to hold and cut today. That is just wrong!

After lunch we did some math drills and then I let the kids have a party. The kids passed out their Valentine's Day cards, had a bite to eat and then watched Charlotte's Web. (We just finished reading the book) We went out at the end and did three laps around the track and it was time to go. A great time was had by all!